Posts

I Love My Body

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Body-shaming is the weapon of the weak….Shun it to emerge stronger and beautiful. T he video above has gone viral in social media. Vidya Balan (Bollywood superstar well known for her iconic presentations) has poured her heart out. She is dealing with a topic that screams for attention from society. Provokes it to think and feel. Perhaps not for the first time. It is a collaborative effort with radio station 92.7 Big FM. It is streaming across the internet with the catchy hashtag #DhunBadalKeTohDekho. It is about body-shaming. No...not just that. Something that goes way deeper and diffuses through the untouched. An individual, even if a child, is never spared. Every breathing moment of her life, she is judged for her looks. She is ridiculed and rebuffed for something she has no control over. And who does that? The society. That uncountable mass that has the power to not let the ‘she’ admire her reflection. But look forward to external approval. "Don’t your parents

My daily dose of dawn

As I witness the grey dawn break out into streaks of gold... I smell the bitter-sweet air and let my heart unfold... I wonder if it fuses our worlds or does it cruelly divide... As I slip into the day and you into night... The mighty fireball cleaving our skies... And still the misty air...stirs up thoughts very fond... I bask in this tranquillity...my daily dose of dawn... By: Shreya Basu © Quotidian Tales

Upside down

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The mind’s eye can yank you from reality into an alternate world in seconds. T he mind is a magician. It harbours the special but mysterious power of imagination. When it gets to work, it makes us see more than what could possibly meet the eye. A stage show with the world’s finest conjurer will pale in comparison. Take, for example, the stunning photo here and what my mind made of it. To borrow the name Netflix gives the alternate reality in its runaway hit, Stranger Things , I went ‘upside down’ with it. As my mind’s eye zoomed in on the photograph, I was left staring at the vast blue sky. One fine line was scoring it -- a jet plane -- piercing through the light, fluffy clouds that punctuated the brilliant blue. And then...in the blink of an eye, I was on that plane. No more gazing up through the photographer’s lens but looking down. I saw the calm ocean, peeking from under the clouds. A tiny speed boat grazed the water like a flying fish. I was completely ‘upside do

Nurturing beyond AI

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Teachers and parents have their work cut out to shape our kids for an AI world. C hildren are the future. Shaping them, along with their parents, are their teachers. But when Sophia, the world’s first humanoid, grabbed headlines three years back, it threw a challenge to the teachers of today. Among the various areas where Sophia could be of use, forecast by creator Hanson Tech, education was one. Artificial intelligence (AI), of which Sophia is one of the finest examples, is permeating every sphere in our lives. Its expanding reach is shrinking the scope for human employment, through automation. Teachers could soon find themselves replaced by AI. IBM’s AI tech, Watson, is famed for being able to beat human intelligence. AI’s appeal lies in being super-fast with 100 per cent accuracy, an enormous memory and malfunctioning that is logically deducible, unlike a capricious human temper. People will have to come up with new ways to add value to their profession to stay on th

May-craft with my son

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Making a craft with your child is a meaningful way to engage him...and much more... I t is always difficult to spend quality time with your kid. I make sure, I never miss one such possibility. I usually take up a tiny project with my son every month. I plan it so as to distribute the activity almost through each day of the month. This allotted task gives us a new topic to discuss and work on, together. My takeaway. The happiness and enthusiasm that fills the tender one during the conversations that go along with the creation. My son was actively involved at every step… his ardent love for this simple craft (that) filled me with a sense of accomplishment. Our May project was to fill a glass jar (a long-forgotten gift from an old friend). How should we fill it was the main challenge the two of us faced. A two-day long rigorous discussion followed. It looked like a professional team doing a much-needed requirements analysis prior to a project. Of course, it was mellowed dow

Eternal moments…

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Reward yourself as a parent. Happiness begins with you. I t was an unusually busy day. Working on a gruelling assignment, I was engrossed in the editing process of the photographs. It had to be furnished to the client the following day. A rather pesky nudge distracted me. I turned around to notice my 7-year-old (but threatening to pose as a grown-up) daughter standing right next to me. She was beaming as she broke out the headlines of her day, “I have something for you.” Seconds seemed an eternity to the little one as she struggled with time to divulge the surprise she had in store for me. Hurriedly, she took out a notebook from her school bag. Deftly flipping through a few pages, she halted only when she arrived at the one, the one that was meant for me. It was not a school exercise or some graded sheet. It did not boast of her exceptional performance or clamoured for my attention and appreciation. It was just a few words, randomly chosen by her to express an emotion that

Beauty on the other side

There is something unexplainably beautiful about walking around with a broken soul... Like the entire existence offering you help to become whole... A little bit of everything comes and tries to fill the crater... From all the whispers in the air... to the music in the ripples of water... So much of the magic has so far been unnoticed... They say it's my lowest... but am grateful... this is the best I have seen... By: Shreya Basu © Quotidian Tales

Oxygen for my soul

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Impromptu plans with friends provide a breather amidst life’s crushing pressure. T he other day, I was supposed to meet two of my friends for shopping. One among us took the meeting time a little too seriously. She was there on the dot. Frantically, she kept calling us as two of us were travelling together. My travel buddy kept reassuring the restless one that we were just about to reach. Actually, we were far from the destination. What a smirk she had each time, thinking she had narrated a convincing tale! I sat and wondered how much was being bought of what she sold that day. Oh, by the way, did I tell you what prompted us to shove aside our work and arrange for an almost impromptu coming-together that afternoon? The pursuit of some perfectly-fitted, voguish good-to-go-with-almost-anything blouses. Yes, you read that clean. A blouse is an upper garment that accompanies and complements the traditional Indian garment called the saree. The mentor knew which style, patte

The endless wait

Never exhaust yourself through waiting... The truth is in crystal view... All you own is the present moment... Nothing else ever belonged to you... Time neither flies nor sleeps... Can't hurry or hasten... Not for yours to keep... It is just shaped by your mind and lens... An illusionary accomplice... Calling for your soulful attention... Never biased nor clear malice... Be awed by the red and the amber... And not just wait for the colour green... The small spaces too make up life... There is a lot happening in-between... Not just the yearning or the end that defines us... But the way we grow through it... Permit the wait to craft you... And patiently garner the benefits...!! By: Shreya Basu © Quotidian Tales

Let's talk

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Engrossed in our gadgets, we now find it intimidating to have a real chat. W ords, words and more words. Not just feed, I feast on them. But communication today is being threatened and usurped by addictive, numbing and readily-available audio and visual entertainment. We just have got to do something about it. Conversation is crucial. Be it a coming-back-from-school story session between a child and a parent, a sweet (and yet-to-become-bitter) têt-à-tête between lovers, a storytelling stretch between an indulgent grandparent and a little one or even an unabashed venting-out bout between friends, such exchanges are the lifeblood maintaining the essence and integrity of relationships. It was only last weekend when I had gone for brunch, a hybrid meal meant for leisurely days, that I distinctly noticed one thing - people were hardly talking! They were immersed in their gadgets. Shockingly, even children (at least one in all but a few tables) were using a virtual portal to

Jet in the sky

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Happiness is simple. Live the moment to make a memory out of it. A bright sunny day. Strapping up my touristy spirit and bitten by the explorer’s bug, I was strolling down a lane in Zurich. Looking here and there. A camera in my hand. The lens of my eye and that of the device mostly collaborated to capture the quintessence of the captivating city. But hey, my vision always dictated the other! It had to sacrifice holding on to prominent spots and landmarks in favour of embracing indigenous life. Every blink offered an image that mesmerised me. Suddenly something happened. By happenstance, I looked up. I saw a beautiful white trail of a zooming jet plane in the sky. No, not just that but everything about it and around it. The contrail against the aqua blue sky framed by cumulus clouds did something to me. It made me smile. I clicked it. And the most amazing thing is that every time I look at the photograph, a gust of fresh air invigorates me. Even today as I share it with y

From forgiveness to freedom

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The painful path of forgiving is what frees us from further pain. H e was the master. I was the slave. The stench suffocated me. My soul was decomposing. Till the day I decided to exercise my will. I took the leap of faith. I pried open the cage. Today I am divorced. With a child. The decision of changing my status, however, was anything but an easy one. And the life after was far from that. The day I crossed the threshold of my previous life, it had felt like cutting off my right hand. A hand that had gangrened, so I had to stop the spread. But that act meant much more than just the pain of severing. It meant learning to live without my dominant hand. And making the most with the other. I accepted my reality and devised two specific strategies to deal with it. First, I would never compare myself to an individual with two hands. The comparison itself was lame and lost. Second, I put my less dominant hand through a spartan schooling till it would emerge as the dominant one.

Dreams...Do you believe in them?

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A dream has the power to become real. Nourish it to inhabit in it. I believe in dreams. It is a great way to utilize your mind when you are sleeping. And the best way to push yourself when you are awake. Our dreams have the potential to create our reality. At least that’s what most of us like to believe. In our dreams, we see things happening. In our awakened state, we endeavor to transform those pleasant happenings into our reality. But sadly enough, when it comes to implementing those vignettes of our dreams into our conscious life, it becomes very complex and tiring. Mostly unattainable and almost unreal. The harsh realities of the matrix of our existence come into play. Those which had never been a part of our dreams. You can’t give up on it till you get to live it….Knowingly or unknowingly they give us the purpose to move on. A dire consequence. Our bodies and minds are quickly overwhelmed. First, due to the sheer frustration of not being able to fulfill our dreams

Our Story

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A blog was born to share the quotidian tales of life. Tales of your lives and ours. R andomness struck us as we bonded, not on the first day of the primary, junior or even senior school for that matter, but in the 11th grade with only a mere one and a half years left to step out of our second homes. Two shabby, squeaking benches, one behind the other, was the space that metamorphosed our experiences from the general to the distinctive. From sharing lunchboxes to sharing lives, all extempores coagulated to form that envious rainbow, which, sadly enough, disappeared once the conducive conditions were lost. Hardly did we realise how time raced us through its course as we shifted from pulling each other’s legs, mimicking teachers, enjoying moments of unadulterated fun to writing absurdities and absolutes in our precious slam books. Sparks produced sparkles, and once in a while, we paused, pondered and decided to proceed….We ventured to discuss and disclose the quotidian tale